Help on a Marketplace Chase scene?

Ok, I'm a first time DM. My party has started with the Kobold Hall adventure in the back of the DMG guide. I'm going to go on my own from there. Here's the general plot I've started:

The party kills the Young White Dragon at the end of the adventure. They cut the lenses from the eyes of the Dragon because an Arcana or something check tells them they can be useful in high level magical rituals to focus energy (and because I need a macguffin). They go back to Fallcrest and to the market to try to either sell the lenses, or learn more about them. They find an old man who knows some things and is about to tell them where to go to find someone who might help them learn more/buy them. But just then a pickpocket comes along and steals the lenses.

So at this point I want the party to either chase down the pickpocket, or stay behind and keep talking to the old man (who won't wait around if they leave). And I'd like to run the chase as a skill challenge, while tracking the chase on a large hex-grid map I'm going to make (one hex = 50 feet sound fair?).

I'm thinking on their first failure in the skill challenge, I'll say they run into some human rabble there to watch the parade (oh yeah, the market is extra busy today because of an annual festival). The rabble get mad for being knocked down, and they have a fight. It'll be a quick one, meant only to slow them down/raise the tension.

I won't make them fight someone every time they fail a skill check, only the first time. And if they fail it completely, then the pickpocket gets away. Or if they win the skill challenge without a fail, then they'll have a combat encounter with the pickpocket, who will by then have gotten to a place where some of his cronies can back him up (the rabble). If they win the challenge despite a fail or two, I'll just say they tackle the pickpocket to the ground and catch him. Mainly, I want there to be one combat encounter in here, but not more.

Questions:

1. What do you think I should do if the party wants to split up, with some chasing and some still talking to the old man? I can still do both, but I don't want the players who stay behind to get bored or miss out on experience. Maybe have some assassins come to kill the old man to protect their secrets? I don't really want to run two fights at once.

2. What if the players get in the fight with the rabble and just want to flee the fight to keep chasing the pickpocket? I don't want to just say, "You can't run, too bad." What are some good rules to make it tough for them to flee but are fair?

3. Any ideas how I can throw the parade into the mix, other than as flavor?

Thanks!!

Benny

Let me see if I understand this correctly.

You have three elements you want to include here:
A conversation with an old man
A chase after a pickpocket
A combat encounter

I think you'd better expect the party to split if they have to deal with all this stuff. It might be easiest to make it explicit and tell them they'll have to split into two teams to handle two simultaneous skill challenges. You'll want to make these challenges pretty explicit, so the players can make good decisions about which skill challenge to be in.

One skill challenge is to entertain the old man: use Bluff or Diplomacy to make entertaining conversation, or some knowledge skills to talk about an interesting topic. Successes indicate you keep the old man entertained: failures mean he leaves. You can stop making these checks when the rest of the party gets back with the dragon eyes.
(I don't really like this way of structuring the skill challenge, but it seems like the best way to link the skill challenges. You may just want to do a fixed number of success before a fixed number of failures.)

The second skill challenge is to chase down the pickpocket...and if I was doing this as a skill challenge, I wouldn't even bother with a map. There's a model skill challenge in the DMG 2 for pursuits that allows the party to succeed by running their quarry down speedily or following them stealthily: I'd suggest using that for a model. You'll want movement skills like Athletics and Endurance to chase the pickpocket, Streetwise to figure out how to cut him off, Perception to keep track of him, Insight to guess where he's going, Intimidate to clear crowds out of the way.
Being stealthy might mean you evade the pickpocket's stalls and spare yourself the combat encounter: being fast might make it less of a hassle to keep the old man entertained.

Structuring this as two separate skill challenges neatly captures that splitting-up feeling: having the people entertaining the old man roll round by round means everybody has something to do. To keep things interesting, the people entertaining the old man might have gradually increasing DC's on their checks.

As for parade flavor? The PC's did just kill a white dragon, right? Doesn't that make them "big [darn] heroes?" Have the parade be in their honor.

I would not add assassins for the old man: I think you've got quite enough to manage as it is.

I'd be careful about pickpocketing the lenses. The party will have a great deal of things that are important and under less scrutiny than their current thing.

The pickpocket might steal a book with information from the shopkeeper. That would mean they have to chase him to get the book and the players might feel a little less like they were puppets.

The market could have many influences. What season is it? What are the primary products sold? Is there a festival\parade\ceremony going on?

Good stuff!

Ok, I'll have to go pick up the DMG2 for that model. I just assumed I would need a map to keep track of where everyone is. But if I take that out, it would be less to keep track of.

I'm not sure if I want them to entertain the old man, exactly. I expect them to have to coerce the information out of him. Like, he's not sure of his own safety if he tells the party about who might want the lenses. But that could still be a skill challenge, using intimidate and diplomacy. His reluctance to share information would explain why he'll leave if the party doesn't leave someone behind to keep working on him.

Steal something other than the lenses... That's a good point. They're all focused and paying attention to the lenses. So it's more likely that the pickpocket would steal something else that they're not as concerned with...

This is really helpful! Thanks! I can share the larger story arc I'm sketching out, if anyone is interested?

Benny

bennyhobo said:

Good stuff!

Ok, I'll have to go pick up the DMG2 for that model. I just assumed I would need a map to keep track of where everyone is. But if I take that out, it would be less to keep track of.

I'm not sure if I want them to entertain the old man, exactly. I expect them to have to coerce the information out of him. Like, he's not sure of his own safety if he tells the party about who might want the lenses. But that could still be a skill challenge, using intimidate and diplomacy. His reluctance to share information would explain why he'll leave if the party doesn't leave someone behind to keep working on him.

Steal something other than the lenses... That's a good point. They're all focused and paying attention to the lenses. So it's more likely that the pickpocket would steal something else that they're not as concerned with...

This is really helpful! Thanks! I can share the larger story arc I'm sketching out, if anyone is interested?

Benny

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I'd definitely like to hear more..sounds like you're off to a fun start!

From personal experience, especially as a first-time DM, you'll want to make sure you have enough planned out so that you don't hit a point where you have to totally wing it and potentially create headaches for yourself plot-wise while at the same time not getting burned out creating all of this great material which the PCs will inevitably completely render useless with something you never saw coming. If you post a little more everyone here can probably help you avoid both situations.

And yeah I definitely agree to have something other than the lenses taken. As a player nothing is more annoying than feeling helpless.. you'll get a lot of, "wait a minute, it's just gone? we were watching it!"

Having something like the book taken keeps things kosher. And then if the PCs lose the guy (ie fail the skill challenges) they haven't lost the item they just worked so hard for.

Consider having the person or group taking the book not be attached to the big bad guy. Maybe it's a group dedicated to keeping that ritual from being completed for some completely tertiary reason. Think Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and the guys in the fezzes trying to keep Indy from finding the grail.

Oh, nice. I like the Last Crusade idea. Very good one.

Well, here's the basic rundown of the story I want to tell. A lot of this was built based on what minis I've got, and building on the basic adventure and setting provided in the DMG.

The party has just cleared Kobold Hall of it's inhabitants, including killing the Young White Dragon that was using the Kobolds to help build it's new territory in the Nentir Vale. They go back to Fallcrest to collect their reward from the Lord Warden and to sell some loot. There is a spring festival going on in the city, but no one yet knows that they have slain a dragon. So the party is still pretty incognito. They try to sell the Dragon lenses, but no one will buy them. They seem to not want to have anything to do with these things, despite their apparent value and power. The party then will be encouraged to investigate why no one wants to have anything to do with these things.

At this point, we have the described pickpocket/chase scene. This only happens after they have told someone about the lenses. Until that time, no one knows what they've got.

From there, they are told rumors of a village far to the north, across a great lake and deep in a forest. The benefactors/whatever of that village are a pair of sorceror sisters who would likely pay highly for those lenses to use in their rituals.

The players will have to fend off attacks from more roving bands of Kobolds (or some other marauding creatures?) on the way to the lake. They'll need to negotiate with someone to use their boat to cross the lake (I've got a toy Pirates of the Caribbean boat that I want to use). They'll be attacked while on the water. They'll have to deal with woodland creatures trying to stop them from entering the forest (I've got a greenvise vine mini, a dire bear, and several other creatures that would probably live in a forest).

The rest of it hasn't gone farther than general ideas. The village benefactors are a pair of medusa sisters who are trying to complete some kind of magic ritual to give themselves incredible power. I figured they would have some undead creatures at their command. They're using an old keep as their base of operations, which is surrounded by this run-down village. The villagers are being forced into servitude by these sisters to provide them with food and... stuff. The sisters want the lenses to help focus their arcane powers and magnify them to the point where their rituals can succeed much sooner and much more powerfully than they originally intended.

There is also some kind of positive force which is influencing the woodland creatures. The party was being resisted, because this force didn't want them to bring the lenses to the sisters. With the Last Crusade idea, this positive force would perfectly fit with a third faction in the city trying to stop the party.

So that's where I'm headed. I'm not going for "save the world" stuff here. Just a fun and exciting adventure. They're going to be level 2 after they kill the dragon. I realize that some of the default monsters I've mentioned are going to be way higher level than the players, so I'll need to scale them down some.

Thoughts? Advice? Thanks! I'm really enjoying these forums!

Here's how I would set it up:

Nimozaran the Green approaches the PCs in the inn at the start of the game. "Go into Kobold Hall and cut off the lenses of the White Dragon there." Give them a Quest. He'll pay well for the artefact and he'll tell them about the other Quests around town that relate to Kobold Hall.

You don't want a check to determine if the eyeballs are valuable because they could fail it. You don't want to assume they'll try to sell the eyeballs in the market or talk to someone to figure out their value - they might just forget about them.

When they get back to Fallcrest tell them that there's a big festival going on (make it take place over a week or something so that time doesn't matter) and Nimozaran the Green is watching the festivities and parade.

Once they make the trade, one of Kelson's River Rats (a halfling) steals the eyeballs from him. Smart PCs won't make the trade in the open. You might want to watch out for that. Doesn't really matter. Have the pickpocket listen in on the PCs (they'll get Perception checks), and he'll shadow Nimozaran to steal the eyeballs later on. Nimozaran can come out screaming, "Stop! Thief!" and being the chase that way.

I'd also figure out what Nimozaran wants with the eyeballs.

bennyhobo said:

I'm thinking on their first failure in the skill challenge, I'll say they run into some human rabble there to watch the parade (oh yeah, the market is extra busy today because of an annual festival). The rabble get mad for being knocked down, and they have a fight. It'll be a quick one, meant only to slow them down/raise the tension.

Click to expand...

Instead of waiting for failure, try this:

"The halfling pickpocket winds his way into the crowd, deftly slipping between villagers, tumbling through their legs. He's getting away, in seconds you're going to lose him in the crowd. What do you do?"

Then respond to their actions appropriately. A brawny type might barge his way through the crowd; that'll trigger the anger of the rabble, success or failure (it just sets up the next check). A DEX type might try to slip through the crowd and only a failure there will set off the mob.

Here's a cool spot for another check:

"The halfling runs to the cliffs and grabs onto a slender coil of rope. He quickly attaches the rope to a harness he's wearing and dives over the edge! Looks like he's getting away. What do you do?"

The halfling is heading to Kelson's place. He only weighs 50 pounds or so, including gear, and anyone heavier will break the rope. Some actions (Feather Fall) will be automatic successes, while other actions will be automatic failures (trying to climb down the cliff is just going to take too long).

Other actions the halfing can take:

- Jumping into a fenced-off lot with guard dogs, guard dogs who are friendly to the River Rats, who attack the PCs if they follow
- Calling the guards to stop the PCs (possibly dirty guards)
- Running into an alley where the River Rats have set up an ambush

You can have combat be a full-blown combat and say that, at the end of every third round, it counts as a failure in the skill challenge; or you could just make a single check, failure = the PCs win the fight but the halfling gets further away and the PCs lose a healing surge.

When it comes to determining if actions are group checks or single checks, ask yourself: is everyone trying to do the same thing? If so, the PC who's most active makes the check, and everyone else aids.

The players have already cleared most of Kobold Hall. All they have left to do is fight the dragon, which is the last encounter in that adventure. So once they do that, they're going to go back to Fallcrest to claim their bounty from the Lord Warden on Kobold scalps and the Wyrmpriest's bone mask. After that, I have to figure it out.

Here's what I've narrowed down to:

After they claim their bounty, they'll head off to the market to sell some loot and buy new stuff. Meanwhile the spring festival (week-long, good idea!) is going on all over the city. Since they're new players who are all about getting as much gold as possible, I'll be able to give them some direction and suggestion to keep things going, like tell them they could try to sell the lenses for a LOT of gold. But oddly enough, the merchants can neither afford to buy the lenses, nor are they all that interested in getting involved in that.

Later that evening the players will rendezvous back at one location to decide what to do from here. My first thought was they could meet at a tavern, but I'm hoping to come up with a different location. Maybe a church, or a town square, or outside the gates to the market, or something. Any suggestions?

While at this location, they'll be approached by a filthy beggar who has obviously seen better days. He says that he has heard of what they're trying to sell, and knows of a town where there might be someone willing to purchase the lenses. But he won't tell them any more unless they pay him a finder's fee. They might pay him, they might indimidate him, however they choose to play it. But this guy doesn't really want the money (which the players don't know). He's secretly working with the medusa sisters, sending the players toward the town. He is sly and casts a charm spell on the players to get them to focus only on his words and do as he suggests.

The pickpocket sees this as his chance and tries to steal the lenses while their attention is toward the beggar.. Maybe he gets them, maybe he doesn't. Either way, the pickpocket takes off running, and a gang of hired thugs emerge from the crowd to beat the players into submission. So now they have to decide if they want to chase the pickpocket, beat up the thugs, and/or stop the beggar from fleeing.

In reality, the pickpocket and thugs have been hired by a third party, who also learned of the lenses, and knows about the medusa sisters. Their duty is to stop the party at all costs from going to this town, kill anyone who interferes, and try to retrieve the lenses.

Thoughts?

That's good. I like how you've given the players some important decisions to make.

I'd probably drop the charm spell from the beggar, though. Just have him act sly. The PCs have no reason not to listen to him. You might say "For some reason, the sounds of the celebrations die out and fade into the background, and the filthy beggar's voice is all you can clearly hear." A charm spell will just open a big can of worms.

Thanks! Yeah, you're probably right about the spell. I can narrate it so it'll work without that.

Anyone have any suggestions on a location for this scene other than a tavern?